What a year to look back to!

It didn’t take long for things to get “uneasy” after the holidays last year. I’m not sure what was first but Corona became a topic quite early in the year and sadly our landlady deciding to sell the townhome we had been renting for 5 years came just about at the same time.

So, we were house hunting through some of the worst Corona months in Spring. It was very challenging and frustrating at times because the housing market was so dry and good homes sold within days or sometimes even hours to cash buyers (mostly from California).

Eventually, just when we got the final notice from our landlady at the end of May we found a house we loved and our offer was accepted! Luckily we got the house fully furnished, which was a big help. It spared us from endless visits to furniture stores and possibly bringing home more than just furniture (Corona).

We had the hottest summer in history in the Phoenix area. On October 14th half of the days (144 out of 288) of the year, equivalent to almost 21 weeks we had temperatures over 100 F (37.8 C). Moreover we had hardly any rain during the monsoon season (which starts mid June). Wildfires were raging not just in California but also here in Arizona and one of them actually close enough to our new home that we could smell the smoke in the air and sadly areas at the Salt River where Marco loves to go photographing were impacted.

Despite the heat we got a lot done in and around the house and we enjoy our new home.

Gladly our work was not impacted negatively by Covid-19. Our duties changed somewhat because our clients didn’t travel for business and therefore no travel bookings or expenses needed to be taken care of but new tasks emerged out of the crisis, like organizing virtual events for instance.

In October we felt like we really needed a break and we drove to Page for a few days. But that was the only trip for us this year. We didn’t feel it was worth risking our health by staying in Hotels and eating at restaurants while away, so we stayed mostly home. 

Next year is hopefully looking better again and will allow safer road trips.

Luckily so far we managed to stay healthy in these crazy, unprecedented times and we are doing our best to keep it that way. We are thankful that our parents are still doing well and also managed to stay free of Corona. Thankfully a few friends who had the virus fully recovered.

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a healthy start into the new year.

Jackie & Marco